HMS Medway

HMS Medway is a Batch 2 offshore patrol vessel for the Royal Navy. Named after the River Medway in Kent, she was the second Batch 2 River-class vessel to be commissioned and is assigned long-term as Royal Navy guardship in the Caribbean. Construction On 6 November 2013, it was announced that the Royal Navy had signed an agreement in principle to build three new offshore patrol vessels based on the River-class design (more specifically, the larger derivative) at a fixed price of £348 million, including spares and support. In August 2014, BAE Systems signed a contract to build the ships on the River Clyde. The ships, which were designated Batch 2 of the River-class, were to be globally-deployable and capable of carrying out constabulary tasks, such as counter-terrorism, counter-piracy and anti-smuggling. As the second ship of the new batch, Medway included some 29 modifications and enhancements over the baseline Amazonas design. Steel was cut, marking the start of construction of Medway, on 8 June 2015 at BAE Systems Govan shipyard in Glasgow. Rather than being launched in the traditional manner, Medway was rolled onto a semi-submersible barge and lowered into the water on 23 August 2017 and was officially named a few weeks later on 20 October 2017. Builder's sea trials began on 9 November 2018 and were completed by 11 December 2018. Her sea trials were completed in only 75 days, a record not seen since World War II. She was then transferred to the Royal Navy on 5 March 2019. Operational history Medway was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 19 September 2019. Arriving via her namesake river, her commissioning ceremony took place at the former Royal Navy Chatham Dockyard in Kent with her sponsor, Lady Fallon, the wife of former Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon in attendance. In the following month, her first operational tasking saw her escorting a Russian Navy cruiser through the English Channel.